September 22, 2007 | Amsterdam, Belgium, Bruges, Europe, Netherlands

We lingered around Bruges in the morning to allow a little more touring – unbelievably during the day before we had walked through the town, taken a canal ride through the town, visited the market, visited the Choco-Story Museum, shopped for gifts, dined and drank, but one of our group wanted to see the nursing musuem. (The day before the bells had rung in the town for about an hour to celebrate liberation day during WWII when the US and others had liberated Belgium from the Nazis.)

We left Bruges behind and headed to Amsterdam around mid-day – we wandered through Dam Square and the always shocking Red Light District before heading to the Canal House hotel in the Jordaan area to get ready for dinner. My room was on the top floor of the hotel and the original pulley system to load merchandise into the house was still intact in the ceiling.

For dinner we went to The Blue Pepper for what seemed like a 40-course rijstafel dinner. The Indonesian food was spectacular and the service at this tiny restaurant couldn’t have been better. I’ll reserve the rest of this post for pictures of the food – honestly I can’t remember which was which but all the dishes were outstanding!